


At The Beginning

by NoirSongbird



Series: Every Breath, Every Hour [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Fluff, M/M, Reaper76 Valentine's Week, SEP era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-24 07:59:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9712466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoirSongbird/pseuds/NoirSongbird
Summary: Of all the places Gabriel Reyes expected to find his soulmate, the SEP was not it, but destiny would have its way.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Here's my entry for day 3 of Reaper76 Valentine's Week! This is from the same soulmate AU as my fic "A Thousand Words," so I've slapped a series tag to connect the two of them~
> 
> Please enjoy!

The Soldier Enhancement Program was going to be  _ hard. _ That was what they told Gabriel over and over, like he hadn’t already been through difficult training to become a SEAL in the first place. He knew  _ difficult;  _ he could handle difficult.

The candidate pool was small, which wasn’t exactly surprising. The selection process had been rigorous, and every single person here was Special Operations. That was what the SEP was supposed to produce - the perfect special operator, a soldier built from the ground up to take a hit and keep on going, to be better, faster, stronger.

Most of them looked like hardened SpecOps soldiers, the type of people Gabriel expected to be handpicked, but there was one that attracted his attention.

The man was young, blond, surprisingly sunshiney, and Gabriel kept looking over at him. He was wearing an Army Ranger’s tan beret, but it was hard for Gabe to imagine he’d finished  _ Basic,  _ never mind  _ Ranger School. _

“Jack Morrison,” the woman next to him -  Kittredge, another Ranger, they’d fought together - said. “He’s green, but he’s good. Indiana farm kid, tough as nails.”

Gabriel made a noncommittal noise, but he took another long look at Morrison. He  _ had  _ to be good to be here; Gabe was willing to wait and see what made him so special.

 

* * *

 

When he got to his assigned room after an introductory speech from the program's director, Morrison was already there, looking a little nervous. Gabriel stepped in, and Morrison greeted him with a brief, slightly nervous smile, which was alarmingly charming right off the bat.

“So, Indiana,” Gabe said, giving his new roommate a once-over, “looks like we’ll be roommates.”

He watched those bright blue eyes light up, and a broad grin spread across the blond’s face. Far more excitement than was really warranted, just for getting to room together, if you asked Gabe, but, hell, maybe the kid was just that enthusiastic.

“Yeah,” Morrison said, “I guess we are.”

And that was when Gabe  _ knew.  _

“Oh,” he said, very quietly.

The words on his wrist were so... _ simple.  _ “Yeah, I guess we are.” A sentence you heard a thousand times in your life, but it was...different, here. It was different with Jack looking at him with wide, bright eyes and a delighted grin, like the whole world had just clicked together for him. There was absolutely no question in his mind that he’d said Morrison’s words, too, which meant  _ Jack Morrison was his soulmate. _ That was why Jack had lit up, why he was currently staring at Gabriel with pure excitement and delight, and why Gabriel was very definitely thinking about scooping him up and kissing him  _ right there,  _ because that seemed like the inevitable conclusion.

He resisted the urge, but just barely. Jumping Morrison when they’d barely exchanged three sentences seemed…. _ stupid,  _ all things considered.

“Yeah, oh,” Jack took a step forward and reached for Gabe’s hand, carefully pulling his wrist forward and running his thumb over the words there. “Not...where I expected to meet my soulmate, I admit,” he said.

“Not where anyone does,” Gabe said, and he let out a slightly nervous laugh. “Well, hell. I. Guess we’re gonna have to get to know each other, then.”

“Yeah,” Jack said. “I’m Jack. Morrison. Though I guess you know who I am already?”

“Yeah, Kittredge told me a little,” Gabe said, unrepentant. “I’m Gabriel Reyes. SEALs.”

“Rangers,” Jack tipped his hat, “but you knew that.  _ God,  _ I’m an idiot,” he winced. 

“It’s charming,” Gabriel assured him. It...really was, too, which made Gabriel feel ridiculous. “Let me help you get settled in? We can talk.”

“That sounds good,” Jack said, and his smile was tentative, this time, but no less beautiful.

God  _ damn,  _ Gabriel was fucked.

 

* * *

They took it slow - Jack seemed to like that, and honestly it was fun, for Gabriel, to get to know Jack  _ and  _ to casually woo him with the secure knowledge that they were meant to be  _ something. _

No worrying about unrequited pining, no concern about things going south. They were  _ soulmates.  _ It would work out.

Their first kiss came about three months in, and when it happened, Gabriel was pretty sure, it won Kittredge some money, because she’d spent the next day parading around the base looking very self-satisfied.

They got dumped into a training simulation, just the two of them - a simulated destroyed city, filled with training bot “hostiles” armed with shock weapons that wouldn’t kill you, but would sure as hell drop you. There was a bomb somewhere in the city, and the goal was to take down the hostiles and shut off the bomb before it “blew.”

Gabriel hated these training runs; they were about evaluating what the program was doing for them, besides the pounding headaches and the constant pain and the occasional illness. Things with Jack were great, sure, but the program itself was a special, exhausting circle of hell.

The idea that people  _ trained and honed for urban combat  _ might need  _ more training in urban combat  _ was ridiculous - this wasn’t about making sure that he and Jack were capable of outmaneuvering a larger force and completing the objective. That was what SEALs and Rangers  _ did.  _ It was all about seeing how  _ quickly and efficiently  _ they could do it, and the answer for the two of them was “pretty damn quickly and pretty damn efficiently.”

They communicated almost entirely by hand signals, circling around the ‘bots and taking them out, Jack’s rifle and Gabriel’s shotguns dropping them. For training, the guns were wired with electric rounds like the bots, which just shut them down, and there was a trail of dropped bots all throughout the simulation. They carved through the smaller cells until they made it to the bomb location, and Gabriel gestured for Jack to go around one side while he went around the other. There were six bots, and once they were down, there was the bomb, and neither of them was  _ specifically  _ an explosives expert - but they’d make due, they always did. 

“Go,” Gabriel said into his headset, and they both moved in, and the bots went down. Gabriel made it to the bomb first, and he swore, loudly, when he saw it.

“We’ve got a problem,” he said.

“What?” Jack asked, kneeling next to him, and then he spotted it, too. “ _ Oh.” _

Clearly, the higher-ups had decided to up the difficulty, because the bomb’s timer was  _ much  _ shorter than usual. Gabriel was pretty sure they’d cleared the bots in their usual time, if not better, so there had to be something altered in the parameters - a new challenge.

He dug into his belt and pulled out the small, delicate tools he needed to crack open the bomb’s casing, carefully prying away the protections that covered the wiring that would set it off. He had to be delicate - no telling if the thing was designed to go off if too much pressure was applied.

This felt, in the moment, painfully  _ real,  _ like it wouldn’t just be a nasty electric shock they’d be receiving if they failed.

He leaned back and let Jack evaluate the bomb - Jack was better, on the whole, with explosives and construction; Gabriel could use them, but Jack had a better eye for how they were put together.

Those sharp blue eyes flew over the bomb, taking it in, and then he pointed at one of the wires. “That one,” he said, firmly, “then the one to the left. That will disarm it.”

“Alright.” Gabriel pulled out a knife. There was no point in second guessing - he trusted Jack’s judgement implicitly. The wires were cut, and there was a tense moment, during which Gabriel was very afraid the thing was going to blow - but the timer stopped, and he let out a sigh of relief.

And then Jack crashed into him, crushing their lips together for a very long, very heated kiss, and knocking Gabriel onto his back on the ground.

It took Gabriel’s brain a minute to catch up to what was happening, because he wasn’t expecting it, but when he did he slung an arm around Jack’s waist and kissed back with enthusiasm. It didn’t matter that they were being watched, he was high on their success and on adrenaline and Jack’s lips were  _ exactly  _ as soft as he’d been imagining and Jack was a  _ very  _ eager kisser and -- it was  _ amazing. _

“Congratulations, gentlemen,” a voice said over the PA system, “that was the fastest clearance we’ve seen of that scenario.”

They broke apart, and Gabriel grinned up at Jack.

“Good job, partner,” he said, “I really appreciate your enthusiasm.” Jack flushed and coughed, and then he stood up, offering Gabriel a hand to help him to his feet. 

“Yeah, well,” Jack said, “I had good backup.”

**Author's Note:**

> Talk to me on tumblr at [noirsongbird!](http://noirsongbird.tumblr.com)


End file.
